New to this car, fill it to the brim and - consternation among the Shell guys - diesel started leaking all over their forecourt. Quickly bought a fuel can and whipped under the leak, but now diagnosing. After around half a litre or so, it stopped, but the fuel was capillaring down to the bottom of the tank, from where I don't know. Wasn't the long neck that emerges under the wheel arch.
Any thoughts as what might be the culprit gratefully received!
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Did you stop filling as soon as the pump clicked or did you try to force extra fuel in? Sounds like you may have tried filling the filler neck and it's overflowed to me.
Knowing exactly what you mean by "filling to the brim" might help here.
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Sounds like an overflow vent did its job. My BMW bike starts to dribble petrol from a little pipe if I overfill it.
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Oh I tried to jam as much as possible in - I'm trying to get a brim-to-brim fuel economy reading.
But will it really accept more fuel down its filler neck, only to then spew some of it back out? Surely full means to the top of the neck and no more?
I've brimmed many cars in my time for economy readings (part of my job), and none has reacted like this.
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Oh I tried to jam as much as possible in - I'm trying to get a brim-to-brim fuel economy reading. I've brimmed many cars in my time for economy readings (part of my job) and none has reacted like this.
I regularly fill my car as full as the pump will let it, though I stop after the pump has clicked off the second time. That's on a Pug 306 HDi. On a 60-litre tank, usually adding about 45-55 litres, I hope that the error in the cut-off point varying between one point and another is reasonably small compared with the total fuel.
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rtj70. 'Filling to the Brim' - A Brim is the top of-i.e.' The Brim of a glass' The brim of the filler pipe in this case. Quite a common expression during Fuel shortages,when you need to fill up and don't know when you'll get the chance again !
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to brim a 13 year old car and not expect it to weep out is brave to me, especially as diesel is like a penetrating oil and finds places to weep to we can only dream of
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But this over-filling can be lethal to following motorcycles. The filler neck is not part of the fuel tank. My car has a fuel tank of 64 litres which won't include the filler neck.
To be filling to the brim means the fuel tank is to the brim. Interesting that people would take this risk of filling the neck of the filler.
Edited by rtj70 on 05/06/2009 at 17:17
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Yeah, I'm a biker too and made damn sure it'd stopped before driving off.
But I've never come across this before. I've always brimmed to pretty much the top of the filler neck (leaving just enough slop room) in all the many cars I've owned/driven and never once had a leak like this. I'd be happy to think it's just a vent, but it feels more like a leak somewhere.
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Thinking about it, doesn't the cap effectively act as a seal, preventing any fuel from escaping once you've filled, even to the brim?
The overflow is usually situated just after the cap and before the flap.
The hissing you get sometimes removing the cap suggests there's no way fuel should be able to escape the filler neck.
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I had a Skoda once that poured petrol out of the lower end of the filler neck if you brimmed it. The same car fretted through the fuel feed hose from tank to carburettor. When it stopped (on a busy corner in King's Cross in rush hour) I discovered the hose end had become frayed and instead of replacing the hose the former owner had simply stretched it tight and done the jubilee clip up tight enough to hold it on... carphound.
That one was a bad buy although it went OK. It taught me a lot though. I paid far too much for it and should have listened more carefully when the garage man admitted it 'wasn't the nicest of Skodas'. I didn't twig until too late that this expression on the lips of a salesman means 'a huge steaming pile of excrement'.
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Just to bump this up again, anyone experienced this on Pug 106s? Leak must be very high up the tank for it to spill just below brim. It seems like it's plastic - any way it can be fixed, or is it a new tank?
Thanks
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It may be leaking from the seal around the sender/fuel pick-up unit on top of the tank. You should be able to see it by lifting the rear seat and looking for a round plastic cover about 100mm dia, prise this off and you should see the unit with wires and pipes attatched. It should be obvious if this is the culprit as diesel takes a while to evaporate.
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Great, thanks. I'll take a look.
Is the seal easy to buy/replace if that's the problem?
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i think they have a big plastic screw type locker on them
it might be that someone nicked the fuel out of your car before you bought it and removing the pump access hole is the easiest way to do this
a word of warning,the pump clips into a lug in the tank so if your cover under the rear seats is standing proud you need to ensure you locate the pump properly before you proceed further ,they either fall in or were a pain
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I've never heard of that before! Interesting information. But wouldn't it be somewhat of a pain to nick it from inside - you'd have to break in first?
Thanks for the tip about the pump. I've had a quick look under the big round plastic cover under the rear seat squab and it's flush with the bodywork, but I'll proceed with caution when I get to the pump.
Does anyone know how easy it is to get a new seal? Scrapper I guess...
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The large nut and seal are available as a service part from a main dealer, although you may just get away with tightening it.
Be prepared to lose some skin in the process as they are a 'mare!
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I gave it a tighten. Hopefully that'll do, because, as you say, not a lot of space down there. Thanks for the help
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